


My Catastrophe (think things are after me)

by franticatlantic



Category: Bandom, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Depression, M/M, Past Sexual Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 09:47:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9650255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/franticatlantic/pseuds/franticatlantic
Summary: Tyler is sixteen years old and Zack is acting moody again.Tyler is thirteen and Zack has just broken his arm trying to jump out of the treehouse.Tyler is nine and Zack grins with a mouthful of gummi bears.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is inspired by the songs 'kitchen sink' and 'slowtown' by twenty one pilots.
> 
> none of this is linear.

“Everything just…goes too fast,” Zack says. “Y’know?”

“I know,” Tyler says, because he does.

“Hey. Remember when we used to put Pokemon cards in the wheels of our bikes and ride around the neighborhood?”

“I do,” Tyler says, because he does.

“You really think the world is worth living in now? Even though it goes so fast and we can’t do any of the things we did as kids or else it’s weird?”

Tyler pauses. Looks at Zack. Opens his mouth and no words come out.

Because.

He doesn’t.

-

He and Zack used to jump on the trampoline out back every night before dinner. If their homework was finished.

Zack could always jump higher than Tyler, which sometimes pissed Tyler off, but mostly just made him want to strive to be better.

Ever since Zack hit puberty Tyler had been shorter than him, which only served to piss him off further, especially since the height difference was so apparent in all of the Josephs’ annual Christmas cards, Tyler and Zack always stood side by side with their arms around each other in a faux-friendly brotherly hug.

But still Tyler would push off from the trampoline using his toes and the balls of his bare feet, propelling himself up up up, reaching for the sky.

“Man, face it,” Zack would scoff, standing on the hard outer edge of the trampoline. “You’ll never go higher than me.”

And Tyler never did.

And Zack got sad and the trampoline was disassembled and packed away into the old rusty shed out back.

And Tyler doesn’t look up at, let alone reach for, the sky anymore and he doesn’t know why.

-

Tyler meets this guy. Josh.

He has yellow hair. Tyler has never seen anyone with yellow hair. He doesn’t think Madison counts, since she’s technically a blonde.

But Josh has actual lemon yellow hair.

They’re at the arcade downtown, the one he and Mark sometimes go to on weekends to blow off steam.

It has all of Tyler’s favorite old arcade games like Pac-Man, X-Men, and the first-person Jurassic Park shooter.

The day he meets Josh he’s playing Street Fighter in the corner while Mark chats with some girls down by the air hockey table.

“You _do_ know that spamming kick is actually cheating,” a voice behind him says.

“I know,” Tyler says, because he does.

Zack used to tell him the same thing, sometimes still does.

“Let me take a whack?” The voice asks.

Tyler makes a face, eyes fixed on the screen. “Wait your turn, man. When I die I still have a few more tokens left.”

There’s a flurry of movement beside Tyler, the guy rooting around behind the machine.

Then the screen goes black and Tyler curses, steps back to find the guy with his lemon yellow hair holding the power plug.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“You’re kinda cute. Wanna share a bucket of fries?” The guy’s lips set into this kind of moue that Tyler’s never seen before. Perfect to go with his sunshine yellow hair that Tyler’s never seen before either.

He’s blushing in spite of himself, shifting from foot to foot. Even though the guy said he was only _kind of_ cute. Which to Tyler is basically an insult.

“Can you plug the game back in? Maybe we can go a few more rounds first. I do still have a lot of tokens left.”

“Sure.”

The guy plugs the game back in, but the boot up screen is too complicated for them to navigate and neither of them wants to tell the guy at the front desk that they may or may not have broken one of the games.

So they get their fries and head out back to an old wooden picnic table, where Tyler asks, “Do you mind if we put vinegar on these?” like he used to ask Zack because Zack was never a big fan of vinegar.

“Yeah, I love vinegar.” Josh sucks fry dust off his fingers and then offers that same hand to Tyler. “I’m Josh.”

He has a sleeve of tattoos down his arm that makes Tyler bite his lip as he claps Josh’s hand in his, spit squishing between their palms. “Tyler.”

-

When Zack first started going to a ~~shrink~~ therapist, Tyler knew it was weird.

Not that that _made_ his brother weird, but he knew most kids didn’t have a weekly appointment in some stuffy old office building with some old guy in glasses. Madison didn’t, at least. Or Jay. Or Tyler himself.

Tyler’s best friend at school, Mark, didn’t either. At least to Tyler’s knowledge.

Tyler even started introducing his brother to his friends and saying, “This is my brother, Zack. His head’s screwed up.”

Zack never seemed to mind, just took it in stride with that easy way he always had.

Sometimes Tyler would go with his parents when they took Zack, would sit in the waiting room fooling around with the baby toys in the corner because he forgot to bring his Gameboy.

From inside Dr. Mensch’s office, he would sometimes hear raised voices, sometimes crying. Sometimes the door would open after an hour, sometimes only 15 minutes.

Most of the time Zack would shuffle out rubbing wet, reddened eyes, their father’s jaw would be set, and their mother would be staring ahead not seeing anything.

“Same time next week?” Dr. Mensch would ask.

Tyler’s mother would nod and say, “yes,” like she was bored.

And Zack wouldn’t talk to Tyler until they stopped at McDonald’s and their parents got them McFlurry’s.

And even then he’d be tight-lipped, smiling only a little at Tyler’s jokes, until they got home and sat in front of the TV and played Donkey Kong Country for a few hours and Zack went back to normal.

It took Tyler a long time to realize that Zack was never truly okay - that faraway look in his eyes wasn’t because he was disinterested in what his brother had to say. The way he’d set his jaw and grit his teeth, like he was having a hard time chewing an old bit of food, wasn’t because he was mad at Tyler.

He’s okay now, or at least that’s what he tells Tyler.

-

Tyler works at Starbucks. His parents aren’t happy about it because it only pays minimum wage and apparently someone who is working his ass off on his way through college to get a business degree shouldn’t be working at a minimum wage establishment.

But Tyler likes it well enough and he gets free coffee for himself and for Josh when he visits, even though he’s not supposed to. So he stomachs it.

Not to mention the job market is completely broken, mother, thank you very much.

There’s a regular at Starbucks named Jenna. She comes in every single day and gets a triple venti soy latte. She has hair that’s so yellow it reminds him of Josh’s and sharp teeth that show themselves whenever she smiles, which is often.

One day Tyler asks her how she stays so happy, what her secret is.

Jenna stands by the handoff plane with her soy latte tucked into her arm and for once her smile falters.

There’s a line forming because Tyler was the only one to show up for the morning shift that day, but he doesn’t care.

“Do you have something you really enjoy doing?”

Tyler nods, because he does. Believe it or not he really likes making coffee, likes experimenting with the latte art and the different roasts. He also likes writing, drawing, and playing video games.

“Whenever I feel down or like someone is making me angry, I just try to think of the next time I’ll get to do something that I love.” She pulls her thin lower lip between her teeth and sucks. “It doesn’t always work, just remember that. We’re only human, after all.”

She leaves with a “take care, Tyler,” and that’s what Tyler thinks about for the rest of his life.

As the guy at the front of the line taps his credit card impatiently on the counter, Tyler thinks he’s only human.

He can’t be happy all the time.

-

The first time Josh jerks him off he goes too fast.

They’re in Josh’s basement cuddling and watching some old alien movie, one Josh used to like when he was young.

That’s a thing they’re doing - sharing bits of their childhood with each other.

Except Tyler doesn’t know what a hand down his pants has to do with sharing childhood memories. Unless something bad happened to Josh that he doesn’t know about.

The only reason Tyler doesn’t tell him to stop is because Josh is kissing his cheek and then his neck, breathing hotly down the collar of his shirt.

Tyler grips Josh’s shoulder and arches, hisses, “Josh, shit…”

“Good?” Josh asks, buries the word in the soft skin of Tyler’s jaw.

It is good, but Josh’s hand is moving too fast. He’s gonna cum before they’ve even hit the third minute mark.

“Yes, I-“

Josh kisses him again, this time right between his lips, making out with his teeth.

He doesn’t know if he’s a horrible kisser because he’s never done this before or if Josh is just overzealous.

Josh tilts his head and mutters, “Tyler, you’re beautiful.”

And Tyler shudders and cums, breath like choppy waves stuttering in and out of his lungs.

His chest feels tight and he clings to Josh, who finally slows his hand to bring him through it.

“Y-You want me to do you?” Tyler asks, even though he’s nervous about it.

But Josh shakes his head. “No, I’m fine.”

When he settles, Josh is stroking his fingers over Tyler’s belly and grinning in that knowing way he has.

“What?” Tyler asks on a blush. His hand is still fisted in Josh’s shirt.

“Nothing. You just are _really_ beautiful.”

-

“Remember when Dad had that affair?” Zack asks.

Tyler’s in the backyard, sitting on the old dusty swing set staring at the patch of dry grass where the trampoline used to be.

Zack sits next to him, though the wind doesn’t rock his swing the way it does Tyler’s.

“Did that happen?” Tyler asks with a frown. “I thought we made that up one night. When we were bored.”

“Oh, _that_ happened,” Zack says convincingly enough for Tyler to believe him. “Remember Mom threw all their wedding shit away and Dad had to sleep on the couch for a few nights? I remember because I snuck downstairs without you to play Zelda one night and Dad was there.”

“You snuck downstairs without me?” Tyler tries not to sound hurt.

Zack waves his hand. “That’s not the point. The point is Dad had an affair and that just goes to show how fucked up everything is.”

“What do you mean?”

“You have two people who’ve been married for 20 plus years and one of them can still be unfaithful.”

Tyler looks down between his toes at the tiny waving blades of grass. He wonders if Josh would ever do that to him.

Zack reads his mind, as always. “You think he would ever do that to you?”

“I don’t know,” Tyler says, because he doesn’t.

-

At the kitchen table, Tyler asks Madison to pass the sweet potatoes.

“Of course, brother Tyler,” Madison giggles, an inside joke between the young sister and her elder brother, one that makes Madison feel cool because she’s so close with someone so much older than she is.

In a few years’ time, that’ll change. Madison will instead be embarrassed by the thought of being friends with Tyler and Tyler will accept that. Because that’s what good older brothers do.

“Mads, after dinner you wanna play some Xbox?”

Madison nods fervently and Tyler’s father chuckles. “Tyler, Zack would be very disappointed in you if he heard you say that.”

Quite suddenly, all movement around the table ceases. Time gains momentum, but instead of speeding forward, it twists and turns back on itself.

Tyler is sixteen years old and Zack is acting moody again.

Tyler is thirteen and Zack has just broken his arm trying to jump out of the treehouse.

Tyler is nine and Zack grins with a mouthful of gummi bears.

Tyler and Zack were always strictly Nintendo and PlayStation guys.

With no preamble, Tyler’s mother bursts into tears and hurries from the kitchen. Her chair makes an abrupt scraping noise against the linoleum.

Tyler white knuckles his fork and eyes the lumpy, orange sweet potatoes in their black Boston Market container.

He doesn’t think about how Zack used to love sweet potatoes or about how their parents would sometimes buy the wrong kind and Zack would throw a fit.

He only thinks about how pop culture lies. How people in movies always say, _“it seems like just yesterday.”_

To Tyler, it seems a hundred years ago. A thousand. A millennium.

No one uses present tense in reference to Zack anymore, because that’s an impossible mistake to make.

-

“Your brother. How old is he?”

There’s cum drying on Tyler’s thighs and Josh has an arm thrown securely around him.

“Gotta say this is the first time anyone has asked about my siblings right after they fucked my brains out.”

“Sex is normal for me, I’ve been doing it forever.” Josh shrugs. “I just want to learn more about you.”

“He was fifteen.”

“Was?” Josh frowns, and the arm he has around Tyler tightens.

“Yeah. Was.”

-

When they first got home from the hospital, the house seemed empty.

Even though only one room was now unoccupied, it still seemed desolate, like something you’d see in a horror movie.

Jay and Madison locked themselves in their rooms for 24 hours. His father went out for a drive.

But Tyler stood at the kitchen sink and listened to the leaky faucet 

_plink_

_plink_

_plink_

against the metal.

He reached out, nudged the spout so that the water would fall into the very middle of the sink, down the drain.

And the _plink plink plink_ turned into

_doink_

_doink_

_doink_

And Tyler saw the knife sitting in the drying rack, big and bright and sharp.

And he grabbed it.

And his mother, as though sensing something was wrong, swooped into the kitchen and grabbed his wrist so hard he had a bruise for three days. And Tyler dropped the knife, which clattered into the sink and drowned out the _doink doink doink_ of the water plopping down the drain.

And she screamed, “Not you too!”

Tyler screamed back, “You don’t get it! And that’s why Zack _killed himself_!”

His mother’s grip on his arm had loosened, though not completely. And she got that faraway look in her eye that Tyler used to see after Zack’s sessions with Dr. Mensch.

And Tyler had whimpered, “Mama?”

And his mother had reached out with the hand not closed around Tyler’s wrist and carded her fingers through the hair at Tyler’s temple, like she used to do when Tyler was a boy, when he was sick in bed with a 105 degree fever and she’d brought him soup and some ginger ale.

“Not you too,” she’d said, slower this time, softer. The wrinkles at the corners of her eyes looked less prominent. “Promise me, Tyler. Not you too. Not my sweet boy.”

And Tyler had promised.

-

“You okay?” Josh asks, plants a lingering kiss to Tyler’s temple.

They’re at the fair and Tyler’s lips are sticky with cotton candy fluff. He kisses Josh anyway, and Josh hums, bites at Tyler’s lower lip maybe a little too hard for comfort.

“Hey, you can get the tickets if you want. I think I saw someone I used to know, so I’ll meet you in a few minutes?”

Josh scans the crowd, as if he might know the person Tyler recognizes. Not seeing anyone familiar, he gives Tyler a swat to the ass and lets him go.

Zack is leaning against one of the turnstiles with his arms crossed, wearing those Aviator sunglasses that Tyler used to say made him look like a cop.

“Hey,” Tyler says.

“Hi. He treatin’ you alright?” Zack nods in the direction of Josh’s retreating form. His back muscles still make Tyler bite his lip and squeeze his thighs together.

“Treats me great,” Tyler says truthfully.

Zack waggles his eyebrows. “How’s the sex?”

“Shut up,” Tyler says, because the sex is something he has to talk to Josh about. But it’s not bad.

“How’s Mom?”

Tyler pulls his cotton candy apart, squishes some of it between his fingers. “Can we talk about you?”

“Why?” Zack asks, suddenly defensive.

Tyler shrugs. “Why not?”

“We’ve talked about me plenty.”

“Why did you do it?”

“I’ve told you that before.”

“Tell me again.”

Zack sighs and shakes his head. He looks every bit like himself as he did the last day Tyler saw him - dark hair, chiseled jaw, goofy looking face. “It got too hard. Everything was just…too _much_. Look around - don’t you think so?”

Tyler does look around, watches the gaggles of people filing like ants into the fair. Most of them are smiling. A lady near the bathrooms is glaring at Tyler talking to himself.

He nods. “Everything’s too fast. It’s not like when we were kids, is it?”

“No.”

“I promised Mom.”

Zack purses his lips, mulls this over. He looks like Tyler when he shrugs and says, “Suit yourself. I’ll see you around?”

“Sure,” Tyler says, because he sees Josh coming back from the ticket booth, grinning with his yellow hair waving.

“You take care of my brother,” Zack says, even though Josh can’t hear him. “We don’t want a repeat incident.”

“Get out of here,” Tyler mutters under his breath.

And Zack does.

**Author's Note:**

> i have [tumblr](http://vintagetyler.tumblr.com/).


End file.
